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[Timeless Bob]

In most worlds, the goblins and elves will eventually outbreed everyone else because they are immortal but also reproduce.  Elves are less likely to outbreed goblins by dint of their wooden weapons and armor, but they can still overwhelm if goblins aren't around, given enough time and space.

  So here is a radical suggestion: Immortal races don't have children!  The cultures of the elves can be continued with animal-people immigrants.  Elves are already freinds to animals, so it follows that animal-people would be the logical mortal choice for elvish culture.  The animal people would be their surrogate children, and those born in elvish lands would take on the culture and mores of the elvish culture.  Elves should be given preferential treatment for positions of authority in this culture, as the immortal "Elder Race" overseeing generations of animal-people as they keep the glades and forest homes of the Elvish nations in good order.

Goblins by their very nature are violent and doomed to fight one another as well as serve their demon overlords.  Death comes to them quickly (but apparently not as quickly as they breed).  However, they also kidnap other races and this is where they should be able to gain their "new recruits".  In stead of making new goblin children, it's the kidnapped "immigrants" and their children who become the replacements for their goblin masters.  Have the immortal goblins fight with each-other, but get preferential treatment when it comes to positions of authority.  Kidnapped races and their children only get positions of power if there is no other goblin able to take it.

This will eventually lead to the weaker or less treacherous Elves and Goblins being killed off in one way or another and most of the remaining ones either being high priests or nobility of some sort, perhaps pursuing esoteric concepts like science or magic or writing endless books.  In later years, elvish or goblin weapon-masters become late-game challenges, each with thousands of kills under their names. 

The mortal races of kobolds, animal people, humans and dwarves would reproduce and die like normal, eventually taking on different cultures as they immigrated to and were transformed into goblin or elvish cultures. Wars or alliances and the ability to affect cultural change in that way would also become much more feasable.

[FantasticDorf]

I mean if they had alternative ways of reproducing i could imagine it would be more viable, same going towards processes of ressurecting the dead in the magic arc via priests or taking them to a special place, but this can already be achieved by adding the [STERILE] tag and large starting populations.

Whenever a deep-fortress disaster spawns too, a number of goblins emerge also as a given alongside their masters (though it goes for any [EVIL] race really).

[Pillbo]

I've never run into the problem of having a world overrun with elves but if it is a problem I'd rather see it solved culturally. How about a entity preference that looks down on birthing more than x amount of children? Then it's moddable in either direction.

It makes less sense for goblins who don't care for so much for social rules but maybe there's another solution there as well... baby goblins eat their moms like spiders or something?

I'd personally prefer goblins were just very long lived instead of immortal.

[draeath]

I'd personally prefer goblins were just very long lived instead of immortal.

Fortunately this isn't too hard to do!

Look in raw/objects/creature_standard.txt and locate [CREATURE:GOBLIN]. Add a [MAXAGE:X:Y] token, where X is the minimum normal lifespan in years, and Y is the maximum. Humans have '[MAXAGE:60:120]' for context. If the token is absent, they are immortal.

If you provide a wide range, like say '[MAXAGE:20:2000]', you'll find goblins live very long in general, but do have a chance of naturally dying young. We don't know the distribution details, but I believe the assumption is it's linear.

[FantasticDorf]

I've mentioned it before on related kind of suggestions but elves always struck me as the products of a single child - upbringing trope.

[Timeless Bob]

I've messed around with the MAXAGE token before with some mixed results.  What really seems to do the job is replacing goblins with intelligent animals as the Demon-spawn, such that each slab demon has a different species of animal-creature as its "tribe".  It's really quite funny when your army of darkness is forty peach-faced lovebird men, I can tell you!  (Of course, if they happen to crossbow-wielding, funny turns into a huge bloodbath, since flying archers are really scary foes.)  Making Goblins into another type of cavedwellers like kobolds was an interesting change, as they still were warlike and reproduced like paperclips, but like kobolds, you never knew you were in their territory until you came across a squad of them or your fortress suddenly had a kidnapping squad show up inside your walls.

That was several iterations ago.  Perhaps its time to do some !!Science!! once again.

[Taras]

You can just do this by modding current game. I have another radical suggestion: breeding demons, titans and forgotten beasts, cross-species pairs will generate new specie, genderless are hermaphrodites and can breed in both female and male style or just breed by budding.

[IndigoFenix]

Oddly making a sterile civ doesn't seem to work anymore. I tried it (to make a "tribal" civ that would naturally die out within the first century or so, and then get taken over by animalmen) but it didn't work - new members with "unknown parentage" kept being spawned spontaneously by the civ.

However, I have found that making a civ very long-lived, but not immortal, seems to slow down their reproduction a lot - possibly because they have a hard time finding partners within compatible age range.

[Azerty]

Epidemics might do the job.

[Timeless Bob]

Oddly making a sterile civ doesn't seem to work anymore. I tried it (to make a "tribal" civ that would naturally die out within the first century or so, and then get taken over by animalmen) but it didn't work - new members with "unknown parentage" kept being spawned spontaneously by the civ.

However, I have found that making a civ very long-lived, but not immortal, seems to slow down their reproduction a lot - possibly because they have a hard time finding partners within compatible age range.

Ahhh.  That would be a possibility.  Functionally immortal, but breeding less and less often as the world ages forward seems just about right.

[Demonic Gophers]

I'd rather have controlled lower fertility for long-lived and ageless species, at least for the standard races.  An 'elder race' that gradually fades out, replaced by ordinary mortals that they recruited into their culture, would be a fun possibility once myth gen can explain how they came to be in the first place and why they're no longer reproducing.  But goblins are sort of the default enemy, so I think they ought to remain common enough to provide their own cannon fodder for sieges.  And the vast horde of elves waving pointy sticks, relying on numbers to make up for their lousy equipment, is one of the interesting twists that separates DF's default setting from the standard generic fantasy world.

One interesting approach might be to make most goblins shorter lived, with a moderately rare caste of ageless goblins with somewhat better stats that provides most of the elite weapon-masters for late game challenge.  Alternatively, they could just have reduced fertility to bring their population growth more in line with the shorter-lived species.

[Lidku]

This maybe a stupid question, but why are Elves and Goblins immortal again? I'd be all for Elves having very long lifespans, but I don't see Goblins as the type to be immortal. Its a really wonky unfair advantage when only Humans and Dwarves die of old age lol

[coalboat]

Goblin is lesser demon. They need no food or water, and don't die of old age.

[Pillbo]

Toady thinks goblins should only die violent deaths and there's probably a similar reason for elves. I've heard that making them immortal solved some game problem early on in development and now I think it's more or less stuck that way.

[Azerty]

Toady thinks goblins should only die violent deaths and there's probably a similar reason for elves. I've heard that making them immortal solved some game problem early on in development and now I think it's more or less stuck that way.

Goblins were originally CARNOVORE but it caused issues: all died in famines.